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Saturday, 14 February 2015

Footballer

Robert Crawford, scorer of the first goal in international football, was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment with hard labor for causing a servant to be flogged to death.

When Andrew Watson made his debut with the Scotland national football team on March 12, 1881, he became the world's first black international football player. He captained the side and Scotland won 6 – 1.

Watson also played for Queen's Park F.C. – then Britain's largest football team – and became their secretary in November 1881. He led the team to several Scottish Cup wins, thus becoming the first black player to win a major competition.

Andrew Watson (top centre) with the Scottish team that played England at Hampden Park

Dr Robert Mills-Roberts was the goalkeeper of the Preston North End soccer team who remained unbeaten throughout the 1888-89 season. Mills-Roberts assisted quarry workers disabled in accidents by designing a contraption to help them raise their hats in chapel.

Franz Beckenbauer captained West Germany to the 1972 European Championships and the 1974 World Cup. After retiring as a player, he became West Germany's team manager, taking them to victory in the 1990 World Cup. He is the only person both to captain and manage a winning World Cup team.

The Brazilian footballer Carlos Kaiser staged his whole career for 24 years - he could barely kick a ball. During the 1980s, Kaiser signed short time contracts with top Brazilian clubs including Botafogo and Flamengo, stating each time that he was lacking match fitness so that he would spend the first weeks only with physical training where he could shine. At the time he went to train with other players, he would feign a hamstring injury and, by the lack of technology at the time, it was difficult to discover that it was a fake injury.

One time Kaiser was forced to play as the team had no strikers. He was worried he would get exposed, so before the game he started a fight with a fan and as a result got sent off before the game even started.

During center half Dennis Smith's 14 seasons with Stoke City, between 1968-82, he became known for his fearless mentality which led to him sustaining a large number of injuries. These included five broken legs, breaking his nose four times, a cracked ankle, broken collar bone, chipped spine, breaking most of his fingers and toes and needing more than 200 stitches. The sequence saw him named in the Guinness Book of Records as the most injured man in football.

Italian footballer Giuseppe Lorenzo holds the record for the fastest-ever sending off in a professional match; The Bologna man was sent off after just 10 seconds on December 9, 1990 in a match against Parma for hitting an opponent.

Archie Thompson set the world record for goals scored in an international match with 13 on April 11, 2001, as Australia played American Samoa in Coffs Harbour in a qualifier for the 2002 World Cup. Australia won 31-0.

Lionel Messi sets a new scoring record for a single European football season in 2012. Messi scored all the goals, including a Spanish league-record 50th goal, to take his season tally to an unprecedented 72 in the 4-0 defeat of rivals Espanyol.

Jari Litmanen is the only footballer to have played international football in four separate decades.

Yossi Benayoun is the only to have scored a hat-trick in the Champions League, Premier League and FA Cup.

Goalkeeper Brad Friedel is the current holder of the Premier League record for most consecutive appearances with 310, a feat he achieved during spells at Blackburn Rovers, Aston Villa, and Tottenham Hotspur. Until he was left out of the Tottenham team on October 7, 2012, the previous Premier League game Friedel missed was Blackburn's last fixtures of the 2003–04 season against Birmingham City, on May 15, 2004.

Brazilian footballer Neymar joined French club Paris Saint-Germain F.C. for a world-record fee of €222 million on August, 2017.